How to cut a video

How to Split Videos

Often, cool videos you’ve just shot or captured contain unwanted elements: ads from YouTube or other hosting sites, pauses, unnecessary content, or they may just be too big for burning to DVD or comfortably playing on mobile devices. The answer is to split the videos into manageable pieces and cut out the parts you don’t want to preserve.

At Movavi, we know how to deal with this problem. You need a simple yet effective video splitter – and we have one. Movavi Video Editor gives you an easy way to split your videos and also lets you edit movies in many different ways.

Download this useful Windows program right now and learn how to split your movies using our simple step-by-step guide.

Step 1: Install the Video Cutter

Download our Video Editor. Open the installation file and install the program following the onscreen instructions. Movavi Video Editor has an intuitive English interface that’s so simple you can learn how to work with it in five minutes. You can use this software for splitting and joining video, and for other video editing tasks.

Step 2: Choose File that You Want to Split

Click Add Media Files and select the video you want to split. Then go to the Media panel and move the clip onto the Timeline in the lower part of the program interface.

Step 3: Cut Video Clip and Remove Unwanted Parts

You can slice up your video using the Video Editor tools or with the help of the built-in Split Movie application. The former is more appropriate if you just want to cut a few parts from a video, while Split Movie is better suited for multi-splitting tasks. Read on for how to make the best use of each approach.

Step 3.1: Cutting the Video with the Video Editor Tools

Go to the Media panel and drag the video you want to cut onto the timeline board. Click on the video on the timeline, place the red marker at the beginning of the unwanted scene and click the button shown on the picture. As you can see, your clip is now split into two parts.

Next, move the red marker to the ending of the unwanted segment and split the clip again. Now this segment has been completely separated from the rest of your video, so you can simply remove it: right-click on the segment and hit Delete. Slide the remaining two parts together, and your video is ready!

Step 3.2: Cutting the Video with Split Movie Add-on

Go to the Media panel, right-click on your video, and select Multi Split. The Split Movie program will open in a new window with your video.
Place the red marker at the beginning of the first segment you want to keep in your video and click the Left Bracket button. Then use the marker and the Right Bracket button to mark the end of the scene. Repeat this process for all the segments you want to keep and click OK; all unmarked segments will be removed from the video.

You can also use this approach in reverse, by marking all the unwanted segments in your video, but you’ll need to hit the Invert Scenes button before clicking OK, or you’ll end up deleting everything you want to keep.

There is one other way you can get rid of unwanted video segments: you can select them while your video is playing. How does it work? Look at the bold line above the timeline. The yellow segments correspond to the “keeper” scenes in the clip. By default, all the footage is marked with yellow.

Click the Play button to start the video. When the first unwanted scene appears, click and hold the 'thumb down' button until you reach the end of that scene. Release the button and you’ll see that the yellow line no longer appears above this segment. This indicates that the unmarked segment will be deleted from the video when you finish watching it.

If you accidentally mark more than you wanted to delete, you can correct this by using the Select button. Once you’ve finished marking up your video, hit OK. You’ll be returned to the Video Editor interface – go to the Media tab and drag the 'keeper' episodes to the timeline.

Step 4: Save Edited Videos

Now you need to save your video in the appropriate format. Click the Save Movie button, then choose from the available options: save as a video file, save as 3D movie, burn to DVD, upload to YouTube, Vimeo or Facebook, or convert for viewing on your mobile phone or tablet.

To save the output as a video file or convert for a mobile device, select the appropriate output preset in the pop-up window and click Save. You can choose any video format, including AVI, MPEG, WMV, MP4, FLV, MOV, and different formats of HD video.

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